Warm wishes to all our readers,
however you do or don't celebrate the holidays, may it be a time
of true peace.

I would like to re-introduce an old
friend, Rob Matthews, who was once featured here in
2005 for his life changing move to southern Spain to make
yurts. http://nonduality.com/hl2301.htm

Rob is now making his farm a
retreat center for gatherings. See what its all about
and the interesting speakers already on the
schedule for next year. www.Mumonkan.co.uk Rob is
also the contributor of the Christianity in the
Light of Asian Nonduality article below.

Also, I found a true
life Christmas story in an old issue that would make a wonderful
new tradition for anyone. It's worth revisting.#2013 - Saturday, December 25, 2004
- Editor: Gloriahttp://nonduality.com/hl2013.htm#top

Christianity
in the Light of Asian Nonduality

Summary
of a paper presented by Bruno Barnhart at the Monastic
Symposium on Purity of Heart /
Contemplation at New Camaldoli in June 2000.

* * *

The Asian contemplative traditions
attract Christians today by their depth, simplicity and
experiential power, and in doing so invite Christianity
back to the unity and fullness of its own internal
'East'. Here is monasticism, 'blessed simplicity' and
contemplative interiority. Here is rediscovered the
original unity and apophatic transparency of the
Christ-event. This 'East' is also the place of solitude
and emptiness, the wilderness of Exodus and the burning
bush and the revelation of the Name, 'I am.' This
is the place of Jesus' baptism, where the words are heard
over the waters, 'You are...'. It is the place of
Christian baptism or 'illumination,' the birth of the new
person in God. Asian 'nonduality' catalyzes the
rediscovery of the pole of unitive identity in
Christianity. This, in turn, is the core of a new
Christian wisdom.

Here,
at the internal eastern pole of Christianity, we find the
principle which most deeply characterizes the three great
traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism. At the heart
of each of these religions is nonduality. In polar
contrast to the religions of the Word (Israel,
Christianity and Islam), I would like to think of these
three Asian religions as the spiritual traditions of the unitive
Absolute - that is, of nondual reality, of the
ineffable One, the source of all beings which is at once
transcendent and immanent. While the three traditions of
the West have prioritized relationship, the three
Eastern traditions have deepened the dimension of identity.
This unitive Absolute, or principle of identity (not to
be equated with the western philosophical term), is the
supreme metaphysical and spiritual archetype which,
confronting the divine Word from the East, exercises a
profound tidal attraction upon Christian spirituality and
thought today.This unitive Absolute is the heart
of what has been called the 'perennial philosophy'.

In
the dialogue between Christianity and the Asian
traditions today, this principle of nonduality - with its
corollary, the nondual self - emerges as a central point
not only of resonance but also of contrast. A
number of Christians have embraced the personal
realization of 'nonduality' as a valid expression of the
goal of spiritual life. There has also been some
examination of nonduality as a theological reality in
Christianity, particularly in the Johannine writings of
the New Testament.It is quite possible that
nonduality will emerge as the theological principle of a
rebirth of sapiential Christianity ('wisdom
Christianity') in our time.

The
unitive principle emerges in the New Testament both in
the 'vertical' dimension of identity and in the
'horizontal' dimension of human relationship. It is
present in the "I and the Father are one" and
the "I am" of Jesus in John's Gospel. It is
present in the koinonia, or communion, of the new,
baptized, believers, which is a participation in the One
which is God. (cf Jn 17:20-23)What is new as
Christian spirituality rediscovers the nondual center today,
under the influence of the Asian traditions, is the
purity and autonomy with which the principle emerges. The
unitive principle, standing free in its purity - detached
from the second principle which is the Word, and then
illumining the Word from within - becomes a hermeneutic
eye which opens up each sector of Christian theology -
long divided into nearly distinct kingdoms - to the
central Mystery, itself newly open and luminous. From the
God 'up there' and 'out there' of a dualistic western
Christian tradition, we move to a conception of God
become one with humanity in Christ: the central
theological principle of divinization re-emerges.

When
we look at Trinity and world together, unfocussing our
Western eyes through Eastern lenses, we may suddenly
glimpse what happened in Jesus Christ, in his
cross and resurrection. In the 'fusion' which takes place
in the body of the crucified Christ is the power of the
cross. The nonduality here, comprehending heaven and
earth, God and the universe, God and all humanity, is not
the nonduality of the beginning (focus of the
Asian traditions), but the nonduality of the end.
In the cross of Jesus (that is, in his death and
resurrection), God (or Trinity) and the Cosmos become
one. This new unity is the 'body of Christ.' At this
point, the Asian traditions today bring forward a further
contribution: the mandala - a quasi-universal
symbol of wholeness, of the unity of all reality. The
'mystery of the cross' - Trinity and creation become one
- naturally expresses itself in a mandalic figure.